Private equity firm General Atlantic (GA) currently holds the highest percentage of outstanding shares (39.9%) in Uruguayan fintech company dLocal (DLO). GA is conducting a take-private transaction with Arco Educação (ARCE), a Latin American company also listed on Nasdaq, alongside Dragoneer.
When asked if a similar take-private transaction could occur with dLocal, co-founder Sergio Fogel stated, “If options of this kind arise, we will evaluate them.” This statement was made in an interview with Bloomberg Línea on Tuesday (August 15). Fogel said he could not comment further.
The dLocal cofounder also mentioned that he wouldn’t comment on rumors about a potential sale. The company reportedly received offers recently, as reported by Bloomberg News earlier in the week. Nonetheless, a person close to the company told Bloomberg Línea that there hadn’t been a take-private proposal for dLocal, and that he couldn’t see there being an intention for one. In that sense, the same source stated that an acquisition was merely a “rumor”, and something hard to fathom given the size of the company.
dLocal, which offers cross-border payment services, currently has a market cap of approximately US$6 billion.
The Uruguayan-born payment-focused company surged by 31% in the afternoon of Wednesday (August 16). In the last five days up to Tuesday, dLocal’s shares had gained 60.27%, but they were still trading approximately 30% below their price in December 2022, when American fund Muddy Waters made public its short position in the company.
This wasn’t the only controversy that dLocal, a competitor of Ebanx and founded in 2016 by Sergio Fogel and Andrés Bzurovski, had to face in recent months. In May, Argentine tax authorities revealed that they would be investigating dLocal for alleged maneuvers to evade currency controls in the country.
Fogel, who categorically rejected both the alleged accounting inconsistencies pointed out by Muddy Waters and the accusations from the Argentine government, announced that he would take on a broader managerial role in the company starting in June. In his words, bringing back his “experience to management” would serve as a “guarantee for customers and investors.”
When contacted, General Atlantic stated that they would not comment on the matter.
